Poetry
Can someone taste grief
I need answers
Can someone taste grief without feeling its vicious bite?
Can someone hurt from it without experiencing its ferocious stripes?
Is grief one of those “I know how you feel” types of
experiences, like happiness, anger, fear?
What does it really feel like, the empty spaces
that once echoed with their laughter,
that once throbbed with the fullness of their presence?
Does it feel like walls closing in, like boulders caving in?
Can someone understand grief by just reading about it, listening to it?
Can words like loss, emptiness, sadness, loneliness mean the same
for the one who reads and the one who leads?
What about the pain in the chest, the ugly cry, the teeth gnashing,
tearless groans, the clawing at the skin, the wishing for death, the anger at the dead?
Can one really understand grief?
They say words are mediums, and mediums are vehicles,
but can one arrive at the same destination as the griever?
Can one understand or claim to feel the same way
when one is not burdened with sifting through the last moments shared,
beating yourself up for the things you could have said right
or the ones you did wrong, wishing you had known?
Can one taste grief the same way the one grieving does
when they have to slough through the flotsam of personal effects,
inhale painfully the sweat-stained clothes, finger the crisp collars, shut down the devices
for the last time?
When they have to decide whether to burn, give, sell, or just walk away
from the items they once loved on the lost,
can one?
Is it easy on the lips when they switch between is and was,
when they have to accept that past tense is the tense for the present and future?
Can someone taste grief without feeling its vicious bite?
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